1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus comprising an image forming section for forming a document image on a paper and a post-processing device for carrying out a post-processing for the paper on which the document image is formed. The present invention also relates to an image forming system in which the image forming apparatus is connected to an operation apparatus for operating the image forming apparatus, so as to be communicable with each other.
2. Description of Related Art
Recently, such an image forming apparatus comprising an image forming section for forming a document image on a paper and a post-processing device for carrying out a post-processing, such as punching processing, staple processing, folding processing, or the like for the paper on which the document image is formed, has been provided.
As an image forming apparatus, for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application No. H4-142993 discloses a copying apparatus comprising a page input unit for specifying an arbitrary page and a control section for controlling the apparatus so as to bind papers to the specified pages, in order to collectively carry out a binding processing for the bundles after all of a plurality of paper bundles are outputted.
Another image forming apparatus having a function such as a page number print processing or a layout processing in addition to a post-processing, such as, staple processing, folding processing function or the like, also has been disclosed. Such an image forming apparatus includes an image forming apparatus in which an image forming condition can be changed for a plurality of papers, a job, a plurality of pages, or a page.
For example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application No. 2004-287411 discloses an image forming apparatus that divides a document having a plurality of pages to a plurality of groups so that an image forming is carried out for all of the groups based on image forming conditions set for each group. Japanese Unexamined Patent Application No. 2004-287411 also discloses an image forming apparatus in which the second image forming condition which is different from the first image forming condition is set for at least one of a layout processing, an information addition processing, or a post-processing of a predetermined page of the document having the plurality of pages so that an image is formed on the predetermined page based on the second image forming condition in addition to the first image forming condition regarding the entirety of a document of a plurality of pages.
However, in the case of the conventional image forming apparatus, when the image forming apparatus is set so as to add a previously-registered character image or a symbol mark image (hereinafter referred to as watermark) to only the first document page of a document composed of a plurality of document groups each of which has a plurality of document pages, a watermark is added only to the first document page of first document group. Specifically, in order to allow the conventional image forming apparatus to add watermarks to the first document pages of all of the document groups, the apparatus must be set for every document page or every document group. This is a troublesome and inconvenient operation for a user to perform the operation.